Rival Kitchen Products

How much has kitchen aid stand mixer helped you in cooking and baking ?

I have just received a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer from a friend as a gift and it is gorgeous. I would like to know what are some creative ways to make this machine useful at my house. (Assumming no attachment is involved, just the three beaters: flat, wire whip, and dough hook) Thanks you so much for your input!

Public Comments

1. just use it as much as you can with recipes that you would use your hand mixer. you will find that your cakes will be lighter and whipped cream and merangues will be higher as well as just a few ideas. the more you use it the more familiar you will become. it is awesome for home made breads and virtualy eliminates hand kneading of bread dough. The more you use the more you'll want attachments for it like the ice cream bowl, meat grinder and pasta machine, etc. I use mine all the time and even got a small commercial unit for bigger cooking tasks. My wife doesnt cook much but loves using it and has cooked more because of the kitchen aid. make sure you get yourself some rubber spatulas and a couple bowl scrapers they will help you tremendously.
2. I always find a hand mixer more useful, but maybe that's just my opinion.
3. I do cake decorating and make a lot of icings. You really cannot whip buttercream up light enough for decorating without a stand mixer. For all the rest of the mixing it just makes it easier to do with the Kitchen Aid than by hand. I never mix anything by hand any more. Cakes, cookies, breads, pancake batter, meringues, puddings, make cookie crumbs, graham cracker crumbs, whipped cream, ..... I don't use mine for mashed potatoes though because I think it makes them too creamy, it breaks the potato fibers down too much and they taste like baby food.